State of Tennessee v. Albert Lamont Bennett, Jr.

CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedAugust 28, 2013
DocketM2012-01003-CCA-R3-CD
StatusPublished

This text of State of Tennessee v. Albert Lamont Bennett, Jr. (State of Tennessee v. Albert Lamont Bennett, Jr.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State of Tennessee v. Albert Lamont Bennett, Jr., (Tenn. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT NASHVILLE Assigned on Briefs April 23, 2013

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. ALBERT LAMONT BENNETT, JR.

Direct Appeal from the Criminal Court for Davidson County No. 2007-C-2315 Monte Watkins, Judge

No. M2012-01003-CCA-R3-CD - Filed August 28, 2013

A Davidson County Criminal Court Jury convicted the appellant, Albert Lamont Bennett, Jr., of attempted aggravated assault and attempted aggravated burglary. The trial court sentenced the appellant as a Range III, persistent offender to ten years for each offense, to be served consecutively, for a total effective sentence of twenty years in the Tennessee Department of Correction. On appeal, the appellant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence sustaining his convictions and the sentences imposed by the trial court. Upon review, we affirm the judgments of the trial court.

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgments of the Criminal Court are Affirmed.

N ORMA M CG EE O GLE , J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which J OSEPH M. T IPTON, P.J., and T HOMAS T. W OODALL, J., joined.

Ashley Preston(on appeal) and Matthew Mayo (at trial), Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Albert Lamont Bennett, Jr.

Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Attorney General and Reporter; Clark B. Thornton, Assistant Attorney General; Victor S. Johnson, III, District Attorney General; and Roger Moore and Hugh Ammerman, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

I. Factual Background

The Davidson County Grand Jury returned a multi-count indictment, charging the appellant with the robbery of Lutishia Eubanks, the aggravated assault of Betty Majors, and the attempted aggravated burglary of Eubanks’s residence. The appellant was convicted of attempted aggravated assault and attempted aggravated burglary but was found not guilty of the robbery of Eubanks.

At trial, Betty Majors testified that in the early morning hours of March 31, 2007, she was asleep in the upstairs bedroom of the apartment of her daughter, Lutishia Eubanks. Majors was awakened by Eubanks’s yelling, “‘You don’t know me, man. I don’t know you. You don’t know me.’” Majors went downstairs, opened the front door, and saw the appellant kicking Eubanks “[r]eally bad.” Majors said that Eubanks was on the ground at the bottom of the porch steps and that the appellant kicked her five or six more times. Majors noticed that the appellant was wearing tan, Timberland boots. Majors asked, “‘Sir, what’s going on?” The appellant responded by hitting Majors on the head. The blow was hard, and Majors felt that she might faint.

When Majors covered her head with her hands, the appellant “started chunking” other parts of her body, including her stomach. After one of the blows, she “bounced off” the air conditioning unit that was protruding from an apartment window. Majors said that the appellant went “back and forth” striking her then Eubanks. As he struck the women, the appellant called them “[b]ad names” and said, “‘I am going to kill you, M-F.”

Majors said that she feared the appellant would kill her and Eubanks. Majors almost lost consciousness, felt faint, and saw “little dots going across [her] eyes.” Majors estimated that on a scale from one to ten, her level of pain was ten. Majors pleaded with the appellant to stop hurting them, but her plea had no apparent effect on the appellant. Majors said the appellant did not seem drunk, but he seemed “really mean or really mad about something.” Majors said that the appellant kicked Eubanks “in the head, stomach and breast . . . anywhere he could.” The appellant struck Majors at least fifteen times. Majors estimated that the attack lasted twenty or thirty minutes. The attack ended when a neighbor, Robert Hill, told the appellant to stop hitting Majors. The appellant then walked over to Hill and struck him.

Majors said that as she was trying to help Eubanks, Monique Thomas approached them and told the appellant, “‘Man, that’s that girl’s mother. She’s an older lady. Don’t hit that lady.’” The appellant approached Thomas, saying, “‘I am going to kill you, too.’” Thomas ran into Eubanks’s apartment, locked the front door, and left through the back door.

Majors said that about fifteen or twenty minutes after the attack, the police apprehended the appellant, placed him in the back of a police cruiser, and brought him to Majors and Eubanks. They identified him as the person who attacked them. While in the police cruiser, the appellant “was hollering and raging and had his head all down. And he was saying, ‘I’m going to kill all these M-Fs.’”

-2- Majors said that neither she nor Eubanks gave the appellant permission to enter the residence. She denied knowing the appellant prior to the attack.

On cross-examination, Majors said that she did not bleed after the assault and that she did not go to the hospital that night because she “wanted to make sure that [she] got a warrant on this guy because [she] was thinking he may come back or anything.” Majors saw her doctor on April 12, thirteen days after the offense. She saw a nurse practitioner before April 12 and also called her doctor, who “called [her] in some medication.”

On redirect examination, Majors stated that as a result of the assault, she still had a knot on her head and had to wear a wig because having her “hair done” was painful. She said that she also had problems with her hip. Majors said that immediately after the attack, Eubanks’s left eye “looked like it was downward,” and her eyes were bloodshot. The next day, Eubanks’s bruises were visible, and “she looked bad.” However, Eubanks would not go to the doctor “because she is not a doctor-going person.”

Majors said that before the attack, Eubanks had cashed her paycheck for over five hundred dollars and that the money was on the ground during the attack; however, afterward they were able to recover only fourteen or fifteen dollars from the ground.

Lutishia Latrice Eubanks testified that on March 31, 2007, she was living in an apartment at 6 University Court. The apartment had a front porch with three steps leading to the ground.

Eubanks said that she went outside when she heard Thomas calling her name. Robert Hill was sitting on the end of Eubanks’s porch, and Thomas was standing on the sidewalk by the steps. The appellant approached the porch, grabbed the top of Eubanks’s shirt and the top pocket of her pants, “smashed [her] off [her] porch and started hitting and kicking [her] and stomping [her].” Hill walked away when the attack began. Eubanks could not remember how many times the appellant struck her with his closed fists. The appellant was wearing boots and kicked Eubanks several times, leaving footprints on her arm that were still present when she testified at the preliminary hearing. Eubanks said that the appellant screamed, yelled, and cursed as he was striking her. As a result of the attack, Eubanks’s nose was injured, and she could not see out of her eye for several weeks. The injury to her eye “hurt real bad.” She also had a big bruise on her arm.

Shortly after the appellant pulled Eubanks from the porch, Eubanks told the appellant, “‘I don’t even know you.” When Majors came outside, the appellant punched her in the face then went “back and forth,” alternating blows to the two women. Eubanks said that when the attack started, Hill walked away and did not speak to the appellant. However, after the

-3- appellant attacked Eubanks and Majors, the appellant “sprung on” Hill.

Eubanks said that she had cashed a check that day and had cash on her person; after the attack, some of the cash was missing. She did not know if the appellant took the money because she tried to keep her head covered to protect herself from the attack.

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State of Tennessee v. Albert Lamont Bennett, Jr., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-tennessee-v-albert-lamont-bennett-jr-tenncrimapp-2013.